Going green
Posted by Chris @ 5:29 pm
It is all very well the Government telling us we all have to go green and be energy efficient etc, but when the simplest of tasks in the go green agenda is difficult, there are clearly some issues to be addressed.
Allow me to explain. The majority of the light bulbs in our house are energy saving ones, but a couple of rooms weren't, the living room, where the light is on the most, and the dining room, where the light is on the most, 2nd/3rd. So with a few days off work I set out to make us energy efficient by doing the simple thing and swapping them for energy saving bulbs. Only I couldn't.
I went to B&Q, I bought the smallest bayonet 11W (60W in old bulbage) bulb, brought it home, and it wouldn't fit in our uplight lampshade. I tried to chop off the bit of bolt that was stopping it from being installed, no joy. Grr. To top off things I tried it without the shade, and because we have a dimmer switch in the lounge, the switch buzzed, annoyingly so. So since we don't care for dimmer switches much (lights are either on or off) the next day we bought a new lampshade, that would fit our bulb, and a replacement switch. And all is now happily installed and working, and the light is much better, but still, it shouldn't have taken me this much effort or had to have me fork out another £8 for a new lampshade and switch.
As for the dining room, that is one of those four spotlight jobbies, and takes R50 reflector spotlight bulbs. And you've guessed it, no shops I've been into sell the bloody things in energy efficient form. You can get them online, but they'll cost you over a fiver to buy, plus P&P so when you need 4 of them, it is easily over 20 quid, and I'm sorry, that is too much. So for now, they'll stay the energy guzzlers they are (although two aren't working anyway, so that's energy efficient already ;o) If anyone knows of a shop where I can buy R50 energy efficient bulbs do let me know!
In the mean time, in summary, make an energy efficient bulb to replace each type of bulb, and make them available in all shops already selling light bulbs, now, and for less than £2 each!
3 Comments
Wednesday, March 28, 2007 6:32:00 pm
Cheaper in the long run though, innit.This comment posted by Chris
Wednesday, March 28, 2007 7:49:00 pm
Yep, good point well made, and I don't dispute it. What I probably should have said in my post as well was that I don't want to get the R50 bulbs off the Internet because I want to be able to see and compare the size of it to the regular bulb to make sure it will fit into the light fitting.This comment posted by Chris
Thursday, March 29, 2007 9:38:00 am
Greetings from Prague!To top off things I tried it without the shade, and because we have a dimmer switch in the lounge, the switch buzzed, annoyingly so.
Normal energy saving light bulbs should not be used with dimmer switches. I can't remember where I read that, probably on the packaging, but it's a not-so-well known fact. They apparently do make some that are suitable for dimmer switches, but they're supposedly difficult to get hold of and probably more expensive...
We got our energy-saving light bulbs through one of the energy companies (Scottish Power I think) and I seem to remember they were mega cheap. Odd really, since buying the bulbs off them would reduce our energy bills, thus reducing their profit.
We've also had similar problems with bulb size too. Why can't they make them the same physical size as the old bulbs? Eh?
This comment posted by Tony Ruscoe
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